Gask or Findo Gask, a hamlet and a parish in Strathearn district, Perthshire. The hamlet lies 17/8 mile SSE of Balgowan station, and 2½ miles N by W of Dunning station, this being 9½ miles WSW of Perth, and 4¼ NE of Auchterarder, under which there is a post office of Gask. The parish, containing also Clathy village, and having Balgowan station on its north-western border, is bounded NW by Madderty and Methven, E by Tibbermore and Forteviot, S by Dunning, SW by Auchterarder, and W by Trinity Gask. Its utmost length, from N to S, is 4 miles; its utmost breadth, from E to W, is 2¾ miles; and its area is 5227¼ acres, of which 42 are water. The river Earn, winding 3½ miles eastward, roughly traces all the southern boundary; and the surface, sinking along it to close upon 30 feet above sea-level, thence rises gently to 382 feet near Charlesfield, and 427 near the manse, from which point it again slopes softly down to 190 feet along Cowgask Burn, flowing 1½ mile south-westward on the boundary with Madderty. Sandstone and grey slate have both been quarried, and marl occurs in several places. The soil is partly argillaceous, partly a fertile loam. More than 1200 acres are under wood. A Roman road, traversing the summit ridge, on the line of communication between two camps in Scone and Muthill parishes, has a breadth of 20 feet, and consists of compactly-built rough stones. It is flanked, at intervals, by traces of fortified posts, each to be garrisoned by from 12 to 19 men. One of these posts has from time immemorial been called the Witch Knowe, and is said to have been the scene of executions for the imputed crime of sorcery. William Taylor, D.D. (1744-l823), afterwards Principal of Glasgow University, was minister of Gask; and natives were Thomas Smeaton (1536-83), an carly Presbyterian divine, and the sculptor, Lawrence Macdonald (1798-1878). So, too, was Carolina Oliphant, Lady Nairn (1766-l845), who was author of The -Laird o' Cockpen, The Land o' the Leal, The Auld House, and others of Scotland's choicest songs. Her ancestor, Sir William Oliphant, about the beginning of the 14th century, acquired broad lands in Perthshire from Robert the Bruce, and became the Lord of Gasknes and Aberdalgie; and Lawrence Oliphant, his descendant, was in 1458 created Lord Oliphant. The fifth of the title, 'ane base and unworthy man,' soon after 1600 sold all his great estates but Gask, which in 1625 was purchased by his cousin, the first of the 'Jacobite lairds.' On 11 Sept. 1745, Prince Charles Edward breakfasted at the 'auld house,' and a lock of his hair is still a family heirloom; in the following February Gask was ransacked by the Hanoverians. The present mansion, begun in 1801, stands 9 furlongs SW of the hamlet, amid finely wooded grounds, and is the seat of Mrs Græme Oliphant, the widow of James Blair Oliphant (1804-47), who was eighteenth in unbroken male descent from Sir William. She holds 4940 acres in the shire, valued at £4354 per annum. Gask is in the presbytery of Auchterarder and synod of Perth and Stirling; the living is worth £233. The church, at the hamlet, was built in 1800, and contains nearly 400 sittings. A public school, with accommodation for 76 children, had (1881) an average attendance of 35, and a grant of £44, 19s. 6d. Valuation (1882) £51l9, 3s. 6d. Pop. (1801) 601, (1831) 428, (1861) 399, (1871) 369, (1881) 364.—Ord. Sur., shs. 47, 48, 1869-68. See T. L. Kington Oliphant's Jacobite Lairds of Gask (Grampian Club, 1870).
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